Written over the course of 1904-6, Soseki's comic masterpiece, " I Am a Cat," satirizes the follies of upper-middle-class Japanese society during the Meiji era. With acerbic wit and sardonic perspective, it follows the whimsical adventures of a world-weary stray kitten who comments on the follies and foibles of the people around him.
"The New Yorker" called it "a nonchalant string of anecdotes and wisecracks, told by a fellow who doesn't have a name, and has never caught a mouse, and isn't much good for anything except watching human beings in action..."Reading this novel took me ages to finish which is unusual for me. The book is not bad at all, in fact it is very funny, engaging, and makes the reader wonder about and laugh out loud at people's absurd behavior. The nameless cat sometimes drones on and on but the stories it tells are interesting and sometimes, maybe most of the time, philosophical and political. A rest between reading portions is a must to fully enjoy the book. I like it enough to give it 4 stars.
Had Ivermectin been employed in 2020 when medical colleagues around the world first alerted authorities to its efficacy, millions of lives could have been saved, and the pandemic with all its associated suffering and loss brought to a rapid and timely end.
As a crime wave breaks in the quiet Cotswold streets, Andy Caplet, a failed reporter, is reluctantly immersed in Inspector Hobbes's investigation. Allergic to danger and exercise, Andy is thrown into grave confusion as he discovers not everyone is human. Not only must he come to terms with Hobbes's extreme oddness, and the tooth-collection of Hobbes's housekeeper, the indomitable Mrs. Goodfellow, but he must work out if a suicide, a murder, and several robberies are connected? And what is the connection? Hobbes goes missing. The cops decide he's big and bad enough to look after himself, but Andy, striving against deep-rooted incompetence and clumsiness, sets out to find him. With a big bad dog to assist, armed only with a leg of lamb, and despite losing his trousers, he discovers the key to the mystery is in the blood. But whose blood? Where is Hobbes? And can he catch vampirism off false teeth?
This is the first in Wilkie Martin's unhuman series of fast-paced, comic fantasy crime adventures, with lashings of great food.
'I ought to tell you, dear, he can get rather wild when he's hungry'
It's the following Thursday.
Elizabeth has received a letter from an old colleague, a man with whom she has a long history. He's made a big mistake, and he needs her help. His story involves stolen diamonds, a violent mobster, and a very real threat to his life. As bodies start piling up, Elizabeth enlists Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron in the hunt for a ruthless murderer. And if they find the diamonds too? Well, wouldn't that be a bonus?
But this time they are up against an enemy who wouldn't bat an eyelid at knocking off four septuagenarians. Can The Thursday Murder Club find the killer (and the diamonds) before the killer finds them?
From the first book, The Thursday Murder Club
In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet weekly in the Jigsaw Room to discuss unsolved crimes; together they call themselves The Thursday Murder Club. Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron might be pushing eighty but they still have a few tricks up their sleeves.
The Man Who Died Twice is the second book of a new mystery series, The Thursday Murder Club. I read it because the first book is not available yet from the library. The story is a stand alone but there are recurring characters aside from the 4 septuagenarians.
The story-telling is straightforward without flowery language which I like and the story is full of surprises. I figured out who the murderer is about 2/3 into the book. Just a wild guess and I was right.
Amanda Jackson has always longed to be a mother. The early weeks of her first pregnancy are a mixture of joy, anticipation, and uncertainty as she and her husband prepare for the journey ahead.
Then comes a devastating loss. Even though her doctors tell her otherwise, Amanda believes she’s still pregnant. Her diagnosis is a rare, mysterious condition called pseudocyesis. Betrayed by her mind and body and her marriage strained, Amanda turns to neuroscientist Patrick Davis for answers.
Patrick understands the strange twists and turns of the human mind better than anyone. But as he spirals ever deeper into Amanda’s illness, his own homelife crumbles as his wife, Marissa, struggles to cope with her own loss. Marissa’s unique and, some may think, macabre work is her salvation, but it’s pulling her further and further away from Patrick.
As the two couples confront the fraught intersection of science, death, and human emotion, they venture into the darkest corners of each other’s lives. What they find there could change them forever.*Sigh* I never learn. Once again I got tricked by glowing comments on Amazon, and the science aspect convinced me to download the book from Amazon First Reads for January 2022. What a huge disappointment and complete waste of my time! The book, inhabited by broken people, is nothing more than soap opera disguised as science-y. There are extremely long paragraphs on science and mathematics that bored me to death. The math theory that Marissa is working on is supposed to discover parallel universes but it never came to fruition. Nothing. So what was the point? SMH
